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Prosecutors decline to charge firefighter who ran over San Francisco air crash survivor

Sat 19 Oct 2013, 9:47 AM AEDT

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The Asiana Airlines Boeing 777 plane crashed while landing at San Francisco International Airport in California on July 6.

Reuters: Jed Jacobsohn

No criminal charges will be filed against a firefighter whose emergency vehicle struck and killed a teenage passenger who had survived the Asiana Airlines crash-landing at San Francisco airport in July.

Chinese teenager Ye Mengyuan, 16, was covered in foam when the vehicle ran over her at the scene of the July crash, and her death was accidental, San Mateo district attorney Stephen Wagstaffe said on Friday.

"There was just no conduct where we saw that reckless disregard for the safety of another [that would justify criminal charges]", Mr Wagstaffe said.

Ye had been sitting toward the rear of the crashed Flight 214 and survived the Boeing 777's crash-landing but died from blunt force injuries consistent with being run over by a vehicle, officials said in the days after her death.

She was one of three Chinese girls who died in the crash, and more than half of the 307 people on board the flight from Seoul to San Francisco were injured.

The scene where Ye was killed was "dramatically chaotic" with people rushing around and firefighters fearful the airliner might explode, Mr Wagstaffe said.

He says the review by prosecutors included police and fire reports and video footage from cameras on the helmets of first responders.

The Asiana Airlines flight crashed when it clipped a seawall short of the runway, skidding out of control, shredding the tail of the plane and catching fire.

The US air safety bureau has said the plane was travelling well below the target speed necessary for landing.